THE ILLUMINATI


   Every bug has it's day or night. Last night l was  visited by some noisy,
   brown, half inch long beetles, crashing around the supper table.

   One flew into my glass of ale. I watched it flail and then rescued it.
   For the next twenty minutes it entertained itself running around in
   circles, and falling about. Feeling rather guilty l picked it up to steady
   it, when suddenly two little lights lit up on it's bottom! " A Glow Beetle".

   That's the male, or glow worm the female, so named because she is
   wingless and fairly long in the body. Any thing in olden days , that was
   long and crawling around was named a worm. The females also shine
   at night on the ground below, the last three segments of their body are
   strongly luminescent.

   These beetles belong to the family "Lampyridae", (Lampyris noctiluca)
   "Night Light"!,which also includes the fire flies. The buzzing males
   are the fliers. They have two very tiny light producing organs at the tip
   of the abdomen, these can be turned off and on at will. They are most
   active in June and July, when after having gone through a three year
   process, they appear as adults, " on - masse". Preferring damper
   conditions they emerge to flash their illuminations at one another.

   The  grounded females can attract many suitors, but choose only one.

   The lava feed on snails. Snails are plentiful here, especially after rain.
    l have often found empty shells occupied not by snails but by black
    crawling wingless glow worm lava. These long segmented little
    carnivores track snails down following their slime trails. When found
    they drive their hollow mandibles into the snailsl flesh, injecting  a
    dark fluid, partly paralizing, partly digestive, reducing the snails to a
    predigested soup!

    Sadly modern all night lighting attracts the fickle males away from
    the females, leaving them old maids. This is why they are seldom
    found in large numbers anymore.
.





 
.